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My rule of thumb when it comes to kitchens (or any room in the house for that matter) it’s to go with light and breezy colors, modern designs with minimal aesthetics.. but lately, I’ve been loving dark rich kitchens! I love dark colour cupboards like black or this beautiful rich green… Oh, I love this green! I think that it’s a cross between emerald and English racing green!… This kitchen has been beautifully designed and curated! The collection of stunning artwork and pottery helped to create that dramatic effect to this fabulous warm and cozy kitchen.

The perfect kitchen to cozy up in with a warm hot chocolate and a great classic book this winter… don’t you think?

As you know I hate spoilers so I’m going to strictly talk about the brilliant set design without mentioning anything else about the movie (which by the way is A MUST SEE!)

Director Kenneth Branagh and production designer Jim Clay have recreated the iconic Orient Express to match the grand history of the railroad and Agatha Christie’s most famous murder mystery.

The Orient Express was a high-class long-distance passenger train established in 1833; its most famous route connected Paris to Istanbul. To prepare for the movie, Director Kenneth Branagh along with everyone involved in the movie took a trip on the Orient-Express, from Paris to Venice because it still uses its original vintage train cars until today. This was a great experience for all of them. They managed to look at and take notes of every detail on the train and made notes of all the surrounding scenery.

Jim Clay also started his designing process by studying the 1974 film and early on decided that the new version needed a more modern look — “a more current style of shooting,” as he puts it.

By “a more current style” he did not mean to make it feel modern but rather a modern aesthetic that we have today! He meant cleaner lines so nothing ornate, and no Victorian furniture, with floral patterns in them!. He went towards art deco and lines that were more geometric rather than floral and this way he made sure that the backgrounds were still opulent and rich but not distracting.

“The idea was to try and give people a sort of sensual, sensory kind of experience of what all that wood feels like, all that marquetry, the crispness of the line, the degree to which they work out the precision of which cutlery is laid out, which was all done with little tape measures and things,” Branagh said in an interview.

Overall, Clay and Branagh succeeded brilliantly in giving the Orient Express the opulence for which it was known for. Just look at the first-class accommodation in the photo above, it looks like a luxurious hotel lounge which was grand yet comfortable!

I found this simple pecan pie recipe by the designer Tom Ford and thought that I’d give it a try this Thanksgiving… Usually, the simple recipes always end up becoming my family favorites! So let’s hope that my kids would be pleased with this one 😉

When Frasier hosted a Halloween party where he asked his guests to come dressed as their personal hero. … Roz dressed as Wonder Woman, Frasier as Sigmund Freud, Daphne as Elton John, Niles as his dad Martin Crane and Martin as Joe DiMaggio…. oh how I miss this bunch!

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In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop… There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white’

Almost a hundred and fifty years ago, Victorian readers opened Dickens’s weekly magazine All the Year Round to find the concluding installment of A Tale of Two Cities, and, immediately following it, the opening installment of a new novel with no author ascribed. They joined Walter Hartright on a night-time walk over Hampstead Heath, winding on moonlit paths until they reached some intersection. There they witnessed the first encounter between Walter Hartright and the mysterious Woman in White… Almost a hundred and fifty years later I got the same goosebumps the Victorian readers got when The Woman in White placed her hand on Walter’s shoulder!!!

It’s not difficult to see why the series was an immediate success with the Victorian public and made its 35-year-old author, Wilkie Collins an immediate celebrity!… and it’s not difficult to see why this Victorian novel continues to thrill us today!

In 1966 designer Yves Saint Laurent and his lifetime partner, Pierre Bergé, discovered Marrakech. They were mesmerized by its charm that on their flight back from their first trip there, they already had the paperwork for a house they wanted to buy. They went back regularly, and it was in Marrakech that Saint Laurent imagined his collections. Now a museum dedicated to the fashion house is opening in the city that had such a strong influence on him. In the words of Pierre Bergé, who had passed away on 8 September (just a month before the opening) “It feels perfectly natural, 50 years later, to build a museum dedicated to his oeuvre, which was so inspired by this country.”

Yves Saint Laurent started archiving his work since his first couture show in 1962. Thanks to this early vision, his collections consists of 5,000 haute couture garments, including the famous Mondrian dress and Van Gogh-embroidered jackets, 15,000 accessories, such as hats, jewelry, and shoes, as well as thousands of sketches, collection boards, photographs, and objects.

Located on Rue Yves Saint Laurent, the museum will open its doors to the public today! The opening actually coincides with the inauguration of another museum dedicated to the designer in Paris. The one in Paris will be housed in the historical couture house at 5 avenue Marceau, a hôtel particulier where the designer worked for almost 30 years.

The museum in Marrakech is designed by Studio KO, an architectural firm established by Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier. The outside of the building is intended to evoke the “weft and warp of fabric” while the interior is designed to evoke the lining of a couture jacket, “velvety, smooth and radiant.”

The museum which is 4,000 square meters, will provide a storage space for around 4,000 pieces. The permanent exhibition space will be 400 square meters.

It’s actually far more than just a museum, it has a research library with more than 6,000 books, a bookshop, an auditorium, and a cafe which will offer a fusion of traditional Moroccan and French dishes. The 150-seat auditorium, named after Pierre Berge, will be used for performances and recitals, as well as conferences, film screenings, and lectures. Below is a picture of the beautifully designed auditorium.

Wearing fur over her Kimono At the Chanel Haute-Couture Spring / Summer 2012 Show

Countess Setsuko Klossowska is an artist and a writer and has been cultivating her unique sense of timeless chic for decades. Countess Setsuko Klossowska de Rola was born in Tokyo in 1942 into the Ideta family, an ancient Samurai clan originally from Kyoto that is part of the Japanese aristocracy. She has been in charge of the Villa Medici in Rome, she has exhibited her work internationally. She became UNESCO’s Artist For Peace in 2005.

She is the widow of the French artist Count Balthus Klossowska de Rola. She met him while he was visiting Japan for the first time in 1962. He was sent to Japan by André Malraux, then France’s first minister of cultural affairs, to choose traditional Japanese artwork for an exhibition in Paris.

XXX attends the Haider Ackermann show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2017 on October 1, 2016 in Paris, France.

<> on March 7, 2015 in Paris, France.

Shortly after their marriage in 1967, they moved to the Italian capital where Balthus became the director of the French Academy in Rome, housed in the 16th-century Villa Medici. In 1977, they settled permanently in Switzerland with their two children in the 18th grand chalet, (a former hotel whose guests included the noted French poet and novelist Victor Hugo). Located in the tiny alpine village of Rossinière, it became the setting for chic dinners and gatherings that included an eclectic roster of international guests such as photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, artist Alberto Giacometti, the Agha Khan, the Dalai Lama and David Bowie. There is a room at the Grand Chalet de Rossinière dedicated to storing Countess Setsuko’s legendary collection of custom kimonos, some of which were recently exhibited in Tokyo. To the untrained eye they may appear traditional, but to those in the

There is a room at the Grand Chalet de Rossinière dedicated to storing Countess Setsuko’s legendary collection of custom kimonos, some of which were recently exhibited in Tokyo. To the untrained eye they may appear traditional, but to those in the know, they are a sartorial fusion of tradition and modernity, East and West, thanks to the Countess’ expert eye. She will often appear at private dinner parties in a ravishing gold brocade kimono, flecked in a deep red that she had matched to her signature nail polish.

Surprisingly, her custom of donning the kimono only began after her marriage to Balthus. Her husband was so enamored by the elegance of the traditional Japanese costume that he asked his wife to wear the kimono without fail every day. “Balthus was surrounded by people who were conscious of the beauty inherent in what they wore, and it was through him that I was able to realize the elegance of Japanese style,” recalled Countess Setsuko, who until their marriage had only worn the kimono on ceremonial occasions, such as the traditional tea ceremony or on New Year’s Day. “I couldn’t even tie the obi belt on my own at first. It would sometimes loosen, making the bow droop down. I made a lot of mistakes,” confided Countess Setsuko, who at 73 continues to wear the kimono even when traveling abroad, whether it is to the Middle East or on a plane bound for New York.

Frasier is hands down my favorite TV sitcom of all time! I think I watch it at least once a year back to back! It’s my go-to sitcom when I’m feeling a bit down or there isn’t much to watch on TV! I love the witty sense of humour and I just love Frasier’s apartment! I think that it is one of the many inspirations I had around me growing up to set my taste as well as my style today! The set was designed by the legendary set decorator Roy Christopher.

In the pilot episode, Frasier shows the apartment to his father, Martin.

Frasier: So what do you think of what I’ve done with the place? You know, every item here was carefully selected. The lamp by Corbu, this chair by Eames, and this couch is an exact replica of the one Coco Chanel had in her Paris atelier.

Martin: Nothing matches!

Frasier: Well, it’s a style of decorating – it’s called eclectic. The theory behind it is, if you have really fine pieces of furniture, it doesn’t matter if they match – they will go together.

Martin: It’s your money!

And a lot of money it was. The set cost a half-million dollars to build in 1993! But what a fabulous set. The apartment is filled with built-in shelves and display areas that highlight Frasier’s collections of African and pre-Columbian art without making it feel like a shop or a museum.

In addition to the treasures Frasier mentions in the pilot, the apartment also featured a Steinway medium grand piano, later on, a Chihuly vase, and several abstracts. Nearly twenty years later, it still looks great.

Frasier had to replace his beautiful Wassily chair with his dad’s grubby old Barca longer!…. I must say that the Barca lounger helped make his apartment look even more eclectic! Don’t you think? But Shhhh don’t tell Fraiser I said that LOL!.

I know that the apartment now looks outdated and very 90’s but I think that with very few changes this apartment would easily look up to date! I would love to replace the coffee table and its matching side table with a table by the artist Ingrid Donat! And that TV, of course, has to be replaced with a modern plasma TV…. Think that the dining chairs have to be replaced too?…. Anyways, the great bones are there so even little changes would certainly make the apartment look modern and up to date again!

I came across this beautifully rendered floor plan of apartment 1901 at Elliot Bay Towers (the building is as fictional as the view outside Frasier’s windows–such a view exists only from the cliffs overlooking Seattle) The artist who created this plan has a great portfolio of work that can be seen HERE.

The Picture above shows how beautifully the art went together in this apartment! Here a Dale Chihuly vase with the Ace, November, Venice USA Print By Artist, Robert Rauschenberg. Published for Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition at ACE Gallery, Venice, California, November 1977.

The Frasier gang with the beautiful Chihuly vase when it was 1st brought in!